Art (and Defeat) in the Streets

Mr. Brainwash after a lobotomy would have made a more compelling piece of street art than Sarah and Sucklord this week. Oh, snap! For all his bravado I felt like their 3D minimalism was channeling Joel Shapiro on a micro scale. Sucklord hinted at being a rat in maze (perhaps you noticed the chunk of cheese in one corner), but as Jeanne would have said, "It was only a whisper," and that don't survive on the outside. It did sort of feel as if the remaining contestants were on a reality show furlough seeing them scurry about under the Brooklyn Bridge. Sorry, Sucklord -- four strikes and you're out. Kymia needed to chill out about Michelle and Lola messing with their mural -- and let's be clear -- that's what all of these creations are. There's no such thing as authorized grafitti. This bit of tension offered up the biggest opportunity for conversation tonight. If the challenge was street art, then Lola had every right to proliferate her imagery as she saw fit. May the best champagne bottle win! Tag or be tagged. Complaining that the stickers could peel off some of your paint before the judges can see the work is completely unrealistic to me. And in a weird way unsportsman-like, I hate to say it.

I liked Lee's observation about the dripping paint mimicking real tree roots, and I remembered how Shirin Neshat once told me how any Iranian you meet in the West is an exile. I suppose an alien in a way because they can never go home again. They are people who must be content or proud or conflicted to drag their ancestry in their wake.Creating an open channel between two very different backgrounds gave Young and Dusty a ping pong-iness that was pretty clever. During the walk through, they invited "guests" to write comments in their own thought bubbles which -- although a crowd pleaser -- I could have lived without. That aspect made it a Prop 8 billboard re-hash, and it was so PC in a relational aesthetics (Google it) sense. The dialogue addressed the circle of life in one straight line. I recently won a competition series. What was that like? It changes you. What was that like? I recently lost a competition series.

I wonder if we see Dusty wearing Young's short shorts -- are they actually satin?! -- on next week's Work of Art…